Alash Ensemble recently joined us for one session as part of our Vocal Expansions series, offering a window into the expansive world of Tuvan music, particularly focusing on Tuva's unique and beautiful throat singing styles. The session provided a tantalising introduction to this incredible vocal artform; this workshop will go deeper, separating the subject out into areas of detailed focus, allowing time for practice and revision between sessions, and slowly developing your vocal technique and understanding of Tuvan music.

The music of Tuva has become well-known in the last 30 years, since the fall of the Soviet Union allowed Tuvan artists to travel abroad and share their unique music. Special attention has been given by world audiences to Tuva's incredible vocal music - xoomei, sygyt, and kargyraa, often called "throat singing" by non-Tuvan enthusiasts.

Alash Ensemble is a trio of master throat singers (xoomeizhi) - Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, Ayan-ool Sam and Ayan Shirizhik. Trained in traditional Tuvan music since childhood, first learning from their families, and later becoming students of master throat singers, the trio have gone on to gain worldwide acclaim and win the most prestigious awards in Tuvan music. This series of online sessions will be led by Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, and Alash's manager/interpreter (and an acclaimed xoomeizhi himself), Sean Quirk.

At age four, Bady-Dorzhu Ondar was discovered by Kongar-ool Ondar, who took him on as a student. A few years later, Kongar-ool brought along his young protege when he toured the United States, where they appeared on the David Letterman and Chevy Chase Shows. Since then, he has toured in Russia, Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, and the United States, winning such acolades as best soloist at the 2005 All-Russian Festival of traditional ensembles and orchestras, and best in competition at the Maxim Dakpai xoomei competition in 2006. In 2007, he was named a People's Xoomeizhi (throat singer) of the Republic of Tuva, the youngest person ever to receive this prestigious award. At the 2008 Xoomei Symposium, Bady-Dorzhu was awarded the grand prize for throat singing. He specializes in the kargyraa style of throat singing, and is especially talented on the igil and the guitar - he's a big Hendrix fan.

The ensemble itself has been equally praised - it was awarded first prize in Tuva's International Xoomei Symposium competition in 2004. Even Alash's American manager and interpreter, Sean Quirk, was named a Merited Artist of Tuva for his contribution to Tuvan culture. In addition, Quirk and all Alash members play in the Tuvan National Orchestra.

In this course, Bady & Sean will strive to bring the students to a holistic understanding of Tuva through its music, delving into the vocal techniques required for production of xoomei, sygyt, kargyraa and other Tuvan types of vocal music. Additionally, the duo will illustrate the connection of Tuvan music to the language, nature, and way of life of Tuva. This five-session course provides a great opportunity for students to achieve real musical growth, especially in terms of the vocal music, as these styles require repetition over time to achieve progress.





WHERE AND WHEN?

This is an online course, but it involves realtime sessions and contact time with your tutor - it's not a "download these videos and watch them at your leisure" type of thing - it's a real workshop with live lectures, individual tuition, assignments and feedback sessions. We've tried to make this remote session as close as possible to the experience of an onsite workshop at CAMP. The course starts on 17/05/2025 and ends on 14/06/2025. The schedule for sessions is as follows (all times are CET):

• Session 1: 17/05/2025, 14:00 - 17:00 CET
• Session 2: 24/05/2025, 14:00 - 17:00 CET
• Session 3: 31/05/2025, 14:00 - 17:00 CET
• Session 4: 07/06/2025, 14:00 - 17:00 CET
• Session 5: 14/06/2025, 14:00 - 17:00 CET

HOW TO BOOK

To book your place on the course, click the button in the green section above. You won't pay anything right now - we'll send you a booking confirmation email with everything you need to know next. Your place is reserved without payment for three days.

You'll find a payment link in the booking confirmation email - follow the link to make a payment (either in full, or the first payment of a 2 month payment plan). In the latter case, a monthly payment plan will be put in place, so your card will be charged 1/2 of the fee today, and 1/2 each month (on the same day) for an additional 1 months. All card payments are handled by Stripe, and are extremely secure. We don't store any card data ourselves - all of this is handled securely off-site by Stripe. If you have a discount or grant code, you will be able to add it when you follow the payment link in your confirmation email.

Once you've made a payment, you'll receive another email containing your receipt, links to resources, contact information and access to our group chat to discuss the workshop with other participants.